The invention concerns a transport device in a packaging machine for transporting a plurality of packages and/or products together which are disposed next to each other transverse to the transport direction, wherein a guiding device is provided for changing the mutual separation of the packages and/or products transverse to the transport direction.
In filling and packaging machines, the products and/or the packages pass through various processing stations and are transported between same by means of transport devices e.g. in the form of conveyor belts. In the event that a plurality of products and/or packages are to be transported together i.e. in a group aligned next to each other, the products frequently fail to have the desired sideward separation. When, for example, three tubes are to simultaneously filled and then further transported to the packaging unit, they gain entrance to the conveyor belt with a mutual sideward separation of approximately 50 mm. Since however a larger mutual sideward separation of approximately 75 mm is desired for transfer to the downstream processing station, they must be displaced sidewardly relative to each other during transport.
Towards this end, conventional installations utilize guiding fins disposed in a stationary fashion above the conveyor belt which direct the sidewardly disposed tubes in an outward direction to increase the mutual separation between the tubes transverse to the transport direction. It has however turned out that the sideward tubes are slowed substantially during the deflecting motion by the guiding walls along which they slide so that they trail the central unretarded tube by a significant amount. Since however the tubes must be simultaneously introduced at the end of the conveyor belt into the subsequent processing station, the leading middle tube must wait at the end of the conveyor belt for the trailing sideward tubes. This increases the processing time. Moreover, a special device must be provided for accepting the sequentially arriving tubes and to simultaneously feed same into the processing station (in particular, a cartoning station), as a result of which the structural complexity is increased.
It is the underlying purpose of the invention to create a transport device in a packaging machine of the above mentioned kind with which the mutual sideward separation between the products and/or packages can be changed without having them precede or trail each other.